The Printers Row Book Fairwas founded in 1985 by the Near South Planning Board to attract visitors to the Printers Row neighborhood - once the city’s bookmaking hub. By 2002, it had grown to five city blocks - on Dearborn, from Congress to Polk - attracting more than 190 booksellers from across the country displaying new, used and antiquarian books, and featuring seven stages with more than 90 free literary programs. Today it is considered the largest free outdoor literary event in the Midwest - drawing more than 90,000 book lovers to events like this one with Joyce Carol Oates, author of The Gravedigger’s Daughter.
Recorded Sunday, June 10, 2007 at Chicago Public Library.